In 1381 the prior of Bodmin, who was lord of the manor and borough, alleged that Burgh and others had offended him by various trespasses. Their exact nature is not known. More details, however, are recorded about an incident involving Burgh and his son John which occurred several years later. In 1392 the Burghs, acting as servants of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (lord of the manor of Blisland, where they lived), had taken captive David Tregoose whom the earl claimed as his bondman, but when it was discovered that Tregoose had been abducted from Cornwall the sheriff was ordered to arrest them and their associates and to seize the earl’s lands and chattels in the shire until adequate securities had been arranged for Tregoose to be given a fair hearing in court.
Besides holding the manor of Barlandew, situated about four miles from Bodmin, Burgh also laid claim to substantial properties, including more than 100 messuages, in the parishes of St. Day and Gwennap. In 1393 he was a defendant in a suit brought at the Launceston assizes over the ownership of these estates, and, perhaps as an outcome of the case, four years later he was sued in the court of common pleas for a debt of £39 owing to the son of one of his co-defendants, Henry Thorne. In October 1398 either he or his son John was in London doing homage to Bishop Stafford of Exeter for land in ‘Burneye’ in the parish of Egloshayle.